Fragments of Our Youth in the Long 1980s: A Meandering Conversation in the Labyrinth of Time

Abstract Carried out mostly through social media and email during the COVID pandemic, two longtime friends recollect and reflect in this conversation-in-progress on the memories of shared and parallel experiences of the literary and art scenes from the early 1980s to its echoes in the new century. The synergistic movements in poetry, popular culture, art, theater, dance, and independent cinema in the effervescent reform era of “opening up” inspired bold experimentation in creativity and sociality, but they responded to consequential political upheavals with lasting impact. Reflecting on their formative period as emerging artists with incipient gender consciousness in the 1980s has shed new light on I Am 60, the authors’ collaborative trans-media project informed by lived experiences and feminist perspectives.